She Heard Her Grandson Screaming Behind the Nursery Door—Then She Saw His Father Sitting There Doing Nothing. But the moment Grandma noticed the tiny red light above the crib, she realized the camera had captured something far worse than anyone expected. / Chapter 17 / 50

Chapter 17 - The Hunt Begins

The panic that surged through Margaret didn't paralyze her; it transformed her. Forty years of quiet, maternal gentleness vanished, replaced by an ancient, ferocious instinct.

"Ethan! Get the truck!" she roared.

Ethan was already moving. He didn't ask questions. He grabbed his keys from the bowl by the door, snatched his heavy winter coat, and sprinted down the porch steps. Margaret followed, stuffing Olivia’s thumb drive into her brassiere and grabbing her heavy iron flashlight from the sideboard.

They tore down the dirt road in Ethan’s Ford F-250, the four-wheel-drive tires throwing gravel fifty feet into the air.

"Where would she take him?!" Margaret shouted over the roar of the diesel engine. "If Evelyn Vance took him using an emergency transfer order, where are they going?!"

"Not to a state facility," Ethan snarled, his knuckles white on the steering wheel, his jaw set in a terrifying mask of rage. "An emergency order signed by Judge Vance’s office gives them forty-eight hours of legal custody before a hearing is required. That’s forty-eight hours to force me to sign over Olivia’s safety deposit box! They're taking him to the family estate on Black Ridge Lake."

"That compound has steel gates and private security, Ethan! We can't just drive through the front door!"

"I don't give a damn about their gates!" Ethan shouted, slamming his foot against the accelerator. The truck surged past seventy miles per hour on the narrow two-lane road. "Three years ago, I sat on that nursery floor while my son cried. I froze because I was weak, because I was broken, because I let them convince me I was nothing! I am *never* looking down again, Margaret! If I have to tear that mansion down with my bare hands, Noah comes home tonight!"

Margaret pulled out her phone and dialed her younger son, Tommy.

"Tommy!" she yelled the second he picked up. "Drop whatever you are doing at the lumberyard! Get your hunting rifle, get your truck, and drive to the north entrance of the Black Ridge compound! The Vance family has Noah!"

"What?!" Tommy’s voice exploded through the receiver. "Ma, what are you talking about?!"

"Do not ask questions! Call Sheriff Higgins—tell him Councilwoman Vance tampered with the brake lines that killed Olivia! We have the forensic video! Tell Higgins if his deputies aren't at Black Ridge in twenty minutes, there won't be anything left of that estate to arrest!"

She hung up without waiting for an answer.

Ahead of them, the heavy forest canopy of Black Ridge began to blot out the afternoon sun. The air grew colder, thick with mountain pine and the distant smell of woodsmoke.

Ethan killed the truck’s headlights half a mile before the main gate, coasting in neutral along the winding gravel road. Through the trees, the sprawling limestone fortress of the Vance family estate loomed over the black waters of the lake.

Sitting in the long driveway behind the wrought-iron security gate was a black SUV—its engine still ticking hot from the drive.